Guide

How to spot a fake casino licence: four patterns the regulator named

A fake licence rarely invents a regulator. It borrows a real one: a number that used to be valid, a seal copied from a licensed site, a company name lifted from the register. The Curaçao Gaming Authority has published enough warnings through 2026 to show the patterns, and this guide sets them out in the order a player meets them, from the footer to the certificate. The verification guide is the positive check; this is the list of things that fail it.

Written by Checked by GnomVRN

Illustration for Spot a fake licence

Pattern one: the dead number

For years a Curaçao casino footer read "licensed under 8048/JAZ" or one of three other numbers, because the island's system ran on four master licences that sub-licensed thousands of brands: Gaming Services Provider, 365/JAZ; Cyberluck, 1668/JAZ; Antillephone, 8048/JAZ; Curaçao Interactive Licensing, 5536/JAZ. That system is over. The four master licences expired in turn, Gaming Curaçao on 18 August 2024, Cyberluck on 1 October 2024, Antillephone on 28 November 2024, C.I.L. on 31 January 2025, and the regulator confirmed none would be renewed. The register it publishes in September 2026 does not contain the string JAZ.

So a /JAZ number in a footer today means one of two things. The operator obtained its own licence under the new regime and never updated the footer, which is careless and checkable: search the company in the register and look for an OGL or CGA number. Or the operator never obtained one, in which case the dead number is all there is. Either way the /JAZ number itself proves nothing, and a review that repeats it as a live licence is repeating a footer.

Live formats

Licences issued under the interim online gaming policy, in force from 15 November 2023, read OGL/2023/… or OGL/2024/…; licences issued under the LOK read CGA/2025/… or CGA/2026/…. The register's September 2026 edition holds entries in both formats and nothing else.

Pattern two: the seal that ended

When the LOK came into force on 24 December 2024, former sub-licensees were given a transitional Certificate of Operation, shown as an orange seal, while their own applications were assessed. The regulator announced on 25 September 2025 that the arrangement would end on 15 October 2025, that every former sub-licensee had by then had its application granted, approved or rejected, and that from that date any operator displaying an orange seal would be in breach of Curaçao law. No extension was granted. An orange seal on a casino in 2026 is a site that stopped updating in 2025 and may have stopped being licensed at the same time.

What replaced it

The green dynamic seal, tied to the operator's approved domains and to a certificate on the regulator's own host. Licensed operators were told to display only the green seal, which is why the third pattern is about where a green seal leads.

Pattern three: the seal on the wrong host

A seal is an image and an image can be copied. What cannot be copied is the host the regulator controls: a genuine seal, in the regulator's own words from its warning of 29 January 2026, is a green box with the letters CGA in white which links directly to the official licence certificate hosted on cert.cga.cw. The certificate address has the form cert.cga.cw/certificate?id= and a token. Click the seal, then read the address bar before reading the page. A certificate on the casino's own domain, on an image host, or on a lookalike such as a different top-level domain with the same name, is a forgery, however faithful the layout.

The January 2026 warning named a group of domains trading under the GEM55 name that carried the regulator's logo and seal without a licence; a further warning covered wagerzcasino.com. Lookalike verification hosts have been reported by players separately, and while the specific lookalikes are unconfirmed, the seal-forgery risk is stated by the regulator itself, whose remedy is to consult the registry on cga.cw and to trust no seal on its own.

Two reads of one certificate

The host must be cert.cga.cw. The domain named on the certificate must be the domain in your address bar. A seal that passes the first and fails the second is the fourth pattern.

Pattern four: the borrowed company

The regulator's warning of 20 July 2026 is the case that makes the register insufficient on its own. Four domains, casinoace.life, fetorex.com, 1-2026.com and tazonex.com, presented themselves as authorised, displayed the regulator's logo and a fake certificate with the digital authorisation seal, and named Famagousta B.V. as their operator. Famagousta B.V. is licensed. The regulator's statement is that these domains are not known to the company and not authorised by the regulator. A player who checked the company name against the register found a live licence and was deceived by a true fact.

The lesson is that a licence attaches to a company and to specific approved domains, and the certificate is the only document that names the domains. The reviews on this site record, for each Curaçao brand, whether the seal resolved and which domain the certificate named; where a brand runs mirrors, the review says which domain was covered. A brand that fails this pattern is not scored on trust above the cap for an unverified licence, whatever its register entry says. The regulators review covers what happens after a genuine licence is found, which is a different question.

The check in one line

Company on the register with a live B2C status, seal resolving on cert.cga.cw, certificate naming the domain you are on. Any failure is a fail.

Where this applies first

The two lowest-wagering codes we verified, with the slot, the multiplier and the cap on each card.

Questions about fake licences

Is a licence number ending in /JAZ fake

It is dead. The four Curaçao master licences, 365/JAZ, 1668/JAZ, 8048/JAZ and 5536/JAZ, expired between 18 August 2024 and 31 January 2025 and were not renewed. A footer printing one in 2026 is quoting a number that stopped being a licence; the operator may hold a live CGA or OGL licence it has not updated the footer for, or may hold nothing.

What does a real Curaçao seal look like

The regulator describes it as a green box with the letters CGA in white; clicking it opens the licence certificate on cert.cga.cw, the regulator's own domain, and the certificate names the approved domain. Anything orange, anything that opens on another host, and anything whose certificate names a different domain fails.

Can a licensed company have unlicensed sites

Yes, and it can also have its name used without its knowledge. The regulator's July 2026 warning concerned four domains that named Famagousta B.V., a licensed company, as their operator; the company did not know them and the regulator had not approved them. The licence covers the company and its approved domains, and no others.

What if the seal links to a page that looks official

Read the address bar. Lookalike verification domains have been reported, and a page can copy the regulator's layout in an afternoon. The only host that proves a Curaçao certificate is cert.cga.cw, and the regulator's advice is to consult the licence registry on cga.cw directly.

Last updated - Checked by: Karssen Avelar